


Well-Deserved Time Off

by frozenCinders



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alcohol, Bonding, Gen, just a fun little vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 18:36:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21324781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozenCinders/pseuds/frozenCinders
Summary: Chrollo decides to take a vacation and three of his Spiders join him.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	Well-Deserved Time Off

No matter how often Chrollo indulges in vacations, he always feels like he's long overdue for one. Typically, he sneaks off alone, but he wanted company this time. Although only three of his Spiders were free and willing to join him, it's nice having them around. There is excitement to be found in their heists, of course, and the risk factor is normally quite low considering how powerful they are. Still, stress finds its way into any job, and a situation like this one that has nothing to do with work affords the four of them the opportunity to just... "hang out".

What prompted this was Chrollo forcibly inheriting a huge villa with a pool, which immediately inspired him to keep it to use as a vacation home. That happened just a few weeks ago, and he sent out the group text asking who would like to join him there two days ago. Uvogin was the first to respond with an enthusiastic affirmative, followed by Machi figuring she could use a break and Shalnark eager to join in on the fun. A few of them regretfully informed Chrollo that they couldn't make it, a few simply declined with no excuses, and a few didn't respond at all. None of this bothers him, of course.

At the moment, he has Uvogin across from him progressively getting more and more buzzed on the beer Chrollo had stocked the fridge with. They're talking about nothing in particular, with Chrollo only half-paying attention due to being engrossed in the best part of the book he's currently reading. Thus, it's easy for Uvogin's attention to get snagged by Shalnark happening to walk by.

"Shal!" Uvogin yells, lightly startling Shalnark with his sudden volume. "Take your phone out of your pocket, I'm gonna tackle you into the pool."

"What?! Don't, I don't wanna get wet!" he protests even as he scrambles to obey. For a split second, he just stands there with his phone in his hand before Machi walks up and takes it so Uvogin won't have any reason to stop. The very next second, there are heavy footsteps and a yelp immediately followed by a huge splash. When they emerge, Uvogin is laughing like he's having the time of his life despite Shalnark complaining and pushing at him, trying futilely to unlink obscenely strong arms from around his neck.

"Drunk Uvo is somehow even louder and fluffier than sober Uvo," Machi comments, now standing beside Chrollo. She must have been exploring the wine cellar when she disappeared a while ago, because she has a few bottles and wine glasses in hand and held against her chest, crowded together since she had to free a hand for Shalnark's phone. She sets all the items down on the glass table as she sits and proceeds to pour a glass for herself.

"Wine?" she offers, tilting the bottle just slightly over one of the empty glasses. Chrollo glances at the one in her hand and the other on the table, a choice between red or white wine, and nods. She pours the one already in her hand: a deep, appealing red. There's only one other glass, which Chrollo knows is because Uvogin is not at all the type to drink wine. Though, neither is Shalnark, so even the third glass is arbitrary.

Glass in hand, Machi goes over to the pool to sit on the edge and dip her legs in the water as she starts up a conversation with Uvogin, sufficiently distracting him into letting Shalnark get out. Machi tells him his phone is on the table before quickly returning to discussing some controversy regarding a nail salon. Chrollo can't make heads or tails of the conversation, but Uvogin seems to recognize it as a familiar topic, so he assumes it's related to a job they did together.

Shalnark grabs a towel since they're nearby but doesn't leave to get changed without his phone. He reaches for it when he's close but freezes as he notices the bottle of white wine.

"Aw, Machi! Did you remember?" he turns to ask, suddenly unbothered by the fact that he's sopping wet.

"Yeah, I remembered not being able to figure out how you could stand it."

"Sweet wine is good!"

"Not when it's _that_ sweet."

"Shal, why don't you get us cocktails or something? Do we have martinis here?" Uvogin asks, tilting his head back from where he leans against the edge of the pool to address both Shalnark and Machi.

"There's a whole bar downstairs," Machi provides. "Wanna raid it?"

"Oh, hell yes!"

There's a small disturbance in the water as Machi pulls her legs out followed by a significantly larger one as Uvogin climbs out of the pool. Machi pats her legs dry and throws the towel at Uvogin when he starts walking back into the house without drying off.

Meanwhile, Shalnark sits across from Chrollo and pours himself a glass of the Sauternes. He idly holds the towel against the side of his head as he sips it.

"Wanna try?"

Chrollo does have a soft spot for sweets himself. He downs the rest of his glass and holds it out for Shalnark to fill, a hint of the deep red still at the bottom flowing up into the soft gold liquid like blood in water. He fills it about halfway in case he doesn't like it. It isn't bad, but Chrollo isn't picky anyway.

"Oh, speaking of sweet stuff, I brought some candy with me! Y'know, those little fun size candy bars? I filled up a bowl with them in the villa," he says, pointing over his shoulder at the sliding door behind him.

His attention finally completely wrenched from his book, Chrollo takes a bookmark out of his pocket and places it between the pages before closing the book and leaving it on the table. It doesn't take long to find the bowl in question: a large, ornate glass bowl on the gray acacia round table. Chrollo recalls the name with a hint of amusement, having heard the previous owner proudly describe the table exactly like that over the phone-- twice in the same conversation.

"I mixed them up, so be sure to try them all!" Shalnark tells him, having trailed behind him while continuing to towel off. "Man, I should get changed..."

Since Chrollo doesn't recognize the candies, he is indeed eager to try them. He picks out one of each and unwraps them all. At this point, Shalnark has stopped to give him a slightly puzzled look. He outright laughs when Chrollo puts them all in his mouth at once.

"You can't even taste them like that!" he claims, but Chrollo sure can. It's a bit too much, actually.

As he's dealing with the mistake in his mouth, Shalnark steps in to pick out each candy again, unwrapping just one and leaving it to sit on the plastic.

"Once you swallow that, try again. They're much better one at a time!"

He takes two of the same kind for himself while he's at it. Chrollo follows his advice and just takes the unwrapped one first. It's definitely less chaotic to have just the one texture in his mouth as opposed to half of the candies being soft and half of them being crunchy. This one is soft, particularly in the middle. Chrollo thinks it might be some kind of cream filling at first, but it's too solid for that. He picks up the wrapper and reads--

"Jeez, you really do need glasses," Shalnark comments, which leads to Chrollo catching himself holding the wrapper as far away as possible and squinting at it. It's always unconscious when he does it, so he never notices unless someone points it out. It was never a problem until recently, when a few of them have started insisting Chrollo should get his eyes checked.

"If it's such a concern, I suppose I can look into it," he yields, though he can't imagine it's that bad. He thinks he can see fine, it's just that it's easier at a distance.

All that aside, the wrapper says the filling is something called nougat. That word means nothing to Chrollo, but at least he sort of knows what it is now.

"There are a lot of different vessels for sugar, aren't there..?" he muses to himself, reading the rest of the candies to see what they contain. Chocolate of multiple varieties, caramel, peanuts, almonds, coconut, peanut butter, more nougat, wafers... Chrollo is aware that there are fruit-based candies as well; his first had been a strawberry flavored hard candy. He thinks there are probably enough different candies in the world to fill a bank vault with, and the mental image that thought conjures up is rather enticing.

"Oh, I also brought a card game for all of us to play! It's best with four players, so I figured it'd be perfect. I'm just gonna go get changed first."

During the short time Shalnark is gone, Chrollo discovers he loves caramel. He stops bothering to try each candy bar and instead switches to fishing out every one that contains caramel. He upturns the bowl and separates his favorites to make things easier before sweeping the rest back into it. Shalnark returns with a smaller towel on his head and a case in his hands.

As Shalnark is going through the cards, Machi and Uvogin come back up with a number of bottles and different glasses. Chrollo steps out for a second to retrieve the wine and his book and catches most of Shalnark's explanation of the game. It's not a simple game like poker, it's some sort of roleplaying game where your goal is to make a group of characters you control as miserable as possible until they die. It sounds grim, but the way Shalnark keeps the atmosphere fun and light makes it hard to take seriously. Halfway through the game, even Machi is buzzed enough to laugh at Shalnark's ecstatic exclamation that he has "terrible news" before announcing that one of his characters died from being badly burned.

"Interesting, considering he was just mauled by a manatee," Chrollo points out.

"Must've been one of those fire manatees!"

"You know what, boss? You're right. That doesn't make any damn sense," Uvogin says, card in hand.

"Uh-oh."

"Turns out, he jumped back in the water at the last second, and he's fine!" he claims, playing a card that cancels the death.

"It's a miracle!" Shalnark exclaims, removing the untimely death card from his character.

"That must have been a pretty traumatic experience for him. Go play with ducklings," Machi says, tossing a card at Shalnark's character.

"Well, shit."

By the end of it, they're all targeting Shalnark solely because he has the most amusing reactions, making it impossible for him to win. He ends up with a positive score by the time Machi wins the game with -60.

"Jeez, what did I do?!" Shalnark complains when he calculates his final score. "Let's play something cooperative instead!"

"Actually, I'd like to get back to my book," Chrollo says, settling on the armchair next to the sofa and pulling his feet up.

"I've had enough too. I'll just watch," Machi says. She takes a spot on the edge of the couch closest to Chrollo and pulls out a handful of chocolates Chrollo never saw her grab.

Shalnark starts looking through the consoles the previous owner had and sets up some kid-friendly puzzle game for him and Uvogin to play. Their characters seem to be made of paper and they're able to clip each other into different shapes, so of course they frequently get distracted trying to kill each other. It certainly slows down the puzzle solving process.

The next time Chrollo looks up from his book, it's to investigate Machi stifling laughter beside him. She's threaded a bunch of chocolates together in the crude shape of a person and seems to think it's hilarious. It's rare for her to actually get drunk, but Chrollo suspects she's had a little too much. He makes a mental note to stop her from drinking for the night if she happens to reach for another glass.

Chrollo tunes back out for long enough to finish his book. It's getting dark by then, and Uvogin is pushing Shalnark into the kitchen, claiming he's "the housewifiest" and should therefore be the one who cooks for everyone. Shalnark says that Uvogin can cook his own food if he's going to be calling him names like that, to which Uvogin starts pretending to apologize in a silly voice. Chrollo looks into the kitchen to see Uvogin poking at Shalnark's cheeks as he overdramatically begs for forgiveness, and Shalnark actually looks like he's getting mad for once.

"You don't have to cook, Shal," Chrollo cuts in, though Uvogin doesn't stop talking anyway. He's definitely had too much, too.

"I'll do it, I'll do it. Just get this grizzly bear off of me!"

Uvogin gasps for effect but cuts himself off as he bursts out laughing. He pats Shalnark on the back a few times before leaving to collapse on the couch. He's lucky it's huge.

At this point, Chrollo realizes something. He's seen Uvogin drunk countless times, and everyone knows how he gets. He starts getting cuddly and more vocal about how much he loves everyone in the Troupe, which Chrollo finds endearing. Drunk Machi starts getting quietly mischievous, setting up tiny pranks that do little more than confuse her victims as she stands in a corner trying her best to contain the most genuine laughter. Also endearing.

However, Chrollo has never seen Shalnark drunk. He's seen him buzzed, seen how he gets more stubborn and confident, but Shalnark tends to restrain himself even more than someone like Machi, who only gets fully drunk once every few years. When Shalnark comes out to announce the food is ready about an hour later, Chrollo starts looking for the abandoned wine bottles. The white wine Shalnark was such a fan of is still mostly full, and Chrollo wordlessly places it next to Shalnark's plate at the table.

"Aw, come on..." he gripes even as he pours himself a glass. Chrollo helps himself to the last of the red in exchange.

"Hey! At least cheers with me!"

Chrollo pauses with the glass halfway to his lips to oblige with a smile.

It's not too long from that moment that Chrollo finally gets to meet drunk Shalnark. He doesn't realize it at first, the fact only dawning on him when Shalnark gets into a laughing slap fight with Machi. He did notice a change in behavior before then, but didn't think too much of it. He's learned now that drunk Shalnark likes to lie for fun, telling all sorts of stories just to see how far he can go and still be believed. Somehow, he manages to trick Uvogin five times before he finally catches on.

"It's not fair," Shalnark whines once everyone is winding down for the night-- sans Uvogin who is already snoring. "Everyone but the boss got drunk."

Chrollo slightly disagrees, as he's been laughing much easier than usual tonight, but he knows what Shalnark means.

"I'm told I'm not a fun drunk," he says, and Machi nods solemnly.

"Huh? Machi, you've seen him drunk? Now I really wanna see..."

"He's a sad drunk, don't bother," she claims, and Chrollo honestly has no idea if it's true. As far as he's aware, he's only gone that far exactly once-- he much prefers a light buzz and a consistent presence of mind-- and that was the one time his memory had failed him.

"Sad? Yeah, he gets pretty philosophical even while sober..."

"Both of you should drink some more water before you fall asleep. Don't get hungover," Chrollo warns to change the subject off of himself.

"Uvo's long gone. Poor guy."

"Maybe having a headache will make him quieter."

There are a few moments of silence before Shalnark speaks up again.

"Wanna see how much stuff we can stack on him?"

Machi throws aside the blanket she'd wrapped herself in as a response, immediately searching for small items. Chrollo quietly laughs to himself as he watches them.

Possibly owing to his restraint with the alcohol, he ends up being the last one left awake. Uvogin is, of course, as sprawled about on the couch as he can be, with Shalnark sitting in the small space left at his feet and hanging halfway off the arm of the couch. Machi is sitting on her knees with her forehead against the edge of the couch cushion-- not very comfortable, but Chrollo's gentle attempts to wake her up already failed so he'll leave her to deal with the consequences in the morning.

Chrollo has a very transient way of viewing life. He'll acquire something, stare at it for a bit, and then he's more than happy to relinquish it. He doesn't form attachments often, but even when he does, they're easily cut. Even his own life is something he wouldn't care about losing. The Troupe, however, is a different matter entirely; it's the one thing he wants to last forever.

Luckily, Chrollo has this serendipitous way of always getting what he wants in the end.


End file.
